The present invention relates to an improved cutter apparatus for cutting elongated food products and in particular to such a cutter apparatus which is capable of removing defects of different lengths while the food product is moving on a conveyor.
The cutter apparatus of the present invention is an improvement over that disclosed in pending U.S patent application Ser.No. 520,244, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,576,071, filed Aug. 4, 1983 by Arthur G. Rayment and assigned to the assignee of the present application. The cutter apparatus of such prior application employs a single knife blade which is pivoted like a pendulum and cuts the food product in both swings to make the two cuts necessary for removal of a defect. In order to accomplish this, the knife blade has two cutting edges on opposite sides of the blade and is rotated through a small angle between cuts in order to enable the cuts to be made for removal of the defect without stopping movement of the food product on the conveyor. This prior cutting apparatus is too complicated and has not proved to be entirely successful.
It is very important not to stop or otherwise disturb the position of the french fry potato strip or other elongated food product on the conveyor belt during cutting, because if the food product is moved during the first cut then the second cut will be out of position with respect to the defect which is sought to be removed from the food product. Thus, it is important that the knife blade when cutting travel at approximately the same horizontal speed as the conveyor belt, so that such blade may cut the french fry strip or other food product without disturbing the position of the food product on the belt. The cutter apparatus of the present application is an improvement on the above-described earlier cutter apparatus, among other reasons because the angle of the knife blade is not adjusted between cuts and the blade is not swung like a pendulum to enable the knife blade to cut in both directions. Instead, in the present cutter apparatus two different knives are moved downward toward the conveyor belt at different times to make the two cuts necessary for removal of a defect. Also the knife blades are each operated by a cylinder which is controlled by a solenoid actuated valve to provide an extremely fast, reliable operation.
The present cutter apparatus is also an improvement over that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,488 issued Sept. 19, 1978 to Vornfett. This patent discloses a cutter apparatus in which the knife blades forming the two cuts necessary for removing the defect from the food product are fixed in position relative to each other. The two knife blades are moved simultaneously downward into contact with the food product as it is held in a trough, for removal of the defect. This has the disadvantage that defects of different lengths cannot be removed without also removing good food product. Therefore, the cutter apparatus of the present invention is faster, more versatile and more efficient and produces less waste than that of Vornfett.